Page 58 of When Kings Fall

“Give me a few moments and we’ll have confirmation.”

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Accessing the security cameras of several buildings within the area, like I did last time to confirm Lynch being there.”

As he was doing that, I mulled over the explanations aloud, “He could’ve gone there trying to get a lead on Lynch for my father. He might be lying about my father not wanting to get involved with it all alongside yours.”

“A possibility,” he said, while focusing on what he was doing. “Although, why would he be so adamant about keeping you out of it if they were already down there working the leads too? They’d believe they could get to him before we had any chance. After all, your father severely underestimates you. And to the outside world I’m just a reckless fucker and people don’t know I have the means to really do a lot of damage.”

“He wouldn’t work with Lynch. We were together. There was a bond there. Not like what I have here with you, Mason, and Colt, but it was still personal, you know?”

“I do, baby.”

He didn’t look the least bit convinced. “But?”

He sighed. “But when your father abandoned the club and shut it down so suddenly, it left his club members adrift. A lot of them were pissed that he did that, actually raging about it.”

“So you think Tommy might have gone to work for Lynch out of spite or something?”

“Possibly out of necessity to make a living. Lynch pays his guys well to keep them loyal. It’s fake loyalty if you ask me, but still. It could also be out of power. Losing the club, there would have been that void there, one he could have been desperate to replace with a different kind of power instead of a brotherhood.”

I grimaced. “I hope not. I really hope not, Levi.”

“There’s another option too, but it will be brutal for you to hear.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t need to hear it.”

I shifted my weight, curling my legs up under me as I faced him.

He stilled on typing away and looked at me, pain for me all over his beautifully rugged features.

“He could have been working for Lynch all along. He could have facilitated what happened to your car that led to the kidnapping. He had an inside track to you, being your main assigned club protection back then. After we were freed, he allowed your hero worship of him to become more when it shouldn’t have. He also kept you weak and in denial about what had happened, treating you with kid gloves. It may not have been out of care for you. It could have been coming from his role with Lynch to ensure you didn’t become a threat or vengeful after what had happened. He couldn’t break you when we were in captivity so it stands to reason that he’d be concerned that somebody who resisted all that he inflicted upon them would be classed as a very real threat to him, especially considering with you being connected to what used to be a formidable and brutal motorcycle club.”

“God,” I choked. “That’s… the idea that it was all an awful manipulation… I can’t… no. It can’t be, Levi.”

“But there were red flags when you were seeing him, yes?”

“Honestly, I wasn’t looking. Not at all. Like you said, I was in major denial.”

“Exactly. He didn’t know the real you. It’s not a stretch to posit that you didn’t know the real him either.”

“Maybe.”

He took my hand. “Listen, that’s just worst-case, just considering a bunch of options. Don’t put any stock into it until we really figure it out.”

“There’s one way to narrow it down right now.”

He nodded, of course getting it easily. “Call your father.” He stroked my fingers. “It’s been two years, are you gonna be okay doing that? I can do it for you if you want. Mason too. Even Colt, he’s a real charmer, even over the phone.”

He actually had me chuckling despite the subject matter. “I can picture it with Colt now. No, I’ve got it.”

I snatched up my phone and scrolled to my phone book, to a number I hadn’t accessed for a really long time.

I sucked in a steadying breath as Levi gave my fingers a bolstering squeeze. And then I dialed.

It picked up on the first ring, startling the crap out of me.

“Baby girl,” my dad’s gravelly voice sounded down the line. “Is that really you, Brianna?”

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